Wealth Distribution in the USA

There is no chance of my ever agreeing with you on this point. Occupying an adult exclusively and paying him or her wage that barely supports him returning to work the next day is an evil to be avoided. I don't accept the excuse that it's what everyone else is doing. I accept that you feel differently.And apparently being caught doing that is something sneaker companies hate. Your argument does not resolve anything.It is the profits, if any, and not the revenue or the value added that belongs to the shareholders. Expenses must be paid before the shareholders get to divvy up the profits, and the salaries include materials, taxes, and salaries. Employees and management, and the executives are all paid out of the revenue stream and all get theirs before the shareholders do.

I think what we can do is examine two companies that are similar, but provide different results to their employees.Let's compare Walmart and Costco.Walmart's owners are multi billionaires. The CEO made over 20 Million dollars last year. 80% of the walmart employees qualify for food stamps.Costco, a similar store, with similar prices.The CEO of Costco made 500K last year.
The average employee makes 18 dollars an hour. 85% of them have health care.Does the cosco employee work that much harder than the walmart one?

So shall we serve money or shall we serve people? The employees indirectly help make every nickel of profit that the company gets. The stockholders have done nothing except kick in money.Shall we take care of people? Help each other? or....shall we reward investors first?

Does the walmart CEO work that much harder than the Costco one?Walmart - imho - is much more onerous in their pay scale, as people being subsidized by foodstamps are being subsidized out of taxes, so taxpayers are in effect paying part of walmart salaries to workers, while the CEO echelon sucks money into their greedy pockets.The minimum wage should be a living wage, period.I do not buy a thing from walmart. I do shop at Costco.Enjoy.

I'm replying generally to several messages.Businesses are not instruments of economic engineering. Businesses are responsible to their shareholders. Acknowledgement of this reality does not make one a bad person who has little sensitivity for the suffering of others.Governments can attempt to use businesses for economic engineering through regulation, such as the minimum wage, tariffs, etc. Companies which obey the regulations of the host country are not committing moral evils.Western companies building factories in third world countries has a history of gradually improving their economic conditions. Those who condemn the very low paying jobs (from a western perspective) are ignoring the grinding poverty often present in many third world countries. The new jobs represent increased opportunity. Over time rising living standards create an increasingly competent populous who can handle more and more complex jobs that pay more, and native industries also arise.--Percy

which is why I believe that the US middle class would benefit more through socialism at this point.Capitalism has progressed(dare I say regressed) to the point that no favoritism has been shown to the domestic population of the West. People before Profits is my cry!Why should my wealthy neighbors become richer through competing for cheaper foreign labor at my expense and yet insist on paying no taxes?

Businesses are responsible to the societies that make their existence possible. Western companies plow over farm land to build factories and slums. Once subsistent and content rural farmerswith their farmland now goneare forced to slave in sweatshops for hours upon hours making less money than they require for their survival.Does this 'improve' economic conditions as measured against a few meaningless standards of GDP, etc.? Sure.Does it improve quality of living? Hardly. Who cares about 'poverty'? When people grow their own food, and enough for their families to survive comfortably, their income is admittedly low, perhaps even zero.That doesn't mean forcing them into a $2/hour job that doesn't provide for even the barest of essentials makes them better off just because their income is now greater than zero. That's a joke, right? Rising living standards? Increasingly competent populous? Native industries?How is moving into a slum constructed of scrap building materials a rise in living standard?How can people forced to perform mindless work every waking hour of their lives increase their 'competence' at any meaningful skill?How can people without enough money to feed their families invest in and build native industries?Don't be blinded by the numbers, Percy.Improvements in one category don't always bring improvements in others.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

No they're not, they're responsible to their shareholders and to the laws of society. If you want to change how they relate to society, you need to change your laws.

Look at it this way: Some people invest money in a company. They are little different than a loan from a bank. They don't create any product nor do they create any revenue for the company. Many companies operate without shareholders -- they are not necessary for a company to operate.Some people invest time and energy -- sweat equity -- in a company. The ones investing the time and energy are the ones responsible for making the company profitable. They are the ones that create the product/s and the revenue for the company. Without them there would be no company.Enjoy.

There are different types of responsibility. Legal responsibility is but one type.

And without the cash, the company can't exist. The investment makes it possible for the company to have a go at making something work. The investor stands to lose his investment or make a return. It's how capitalism works. The companies that have no shareholders tend to be tiny. It's quite rare for a small company to grow into a large one organically from its own internal resources and even rarer to do it without bank loans. We call those people employees and they are paid for their sweat at the rate for the job they do. It takes many kinds of people to make a successful company - but what is your point?

I do not think it would be best through socialism.. per say. I think there should be some more socialistic programs.. but a mixed economy , and financial regulations seem to be the best solution.I think regulation would be the best to get a healthier distrubition of wealth .. and I do like the idea of divorcing health care from being provided by employers (maybe vouchers , and you chose???)But I see problems with pure socialism

Well, of course they are, by paying their taxes and by following the laws and regulations of host countries.If you mean they have additional responsibilities that require them to devote some of their resources to making unspecified societal improvements, no they don't. You don't want businesses doing it anyway, it would all be uncoordinated and their own ideas of what would be best for society would often be at cross purposes. Deciding how to improve societies is the responsibility of government, and they can pass laws and regulations spelling out what responsibilities they think businesses should have, but usually it's just taxes, laws and regulations that they care about.Businesses have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders that is spelled out quite clearly in legal documents. That's quite a horror story, but it doesn't sound very likely. Factories fit on very small footprints compared to farms, and one normally puts factories in or near cities where the workforce is.One big problem in third world countries is too many people flowing into cities from the countryside because they tend to have large families, and with diminishing infant mortality and improved healthcare too many are living into adulthood. A farm can only be subdivided so many times, then the children who don't inherit go to the city, so new factories built in or near cities already have a ready workforce to draw upon. Yes, of course, where have you been. The specifics differ, but China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and India are all examples of countries improving through significant contributions from foreign investment, which they all work very hard to attract.--Percy

True. Merely acknowledging evil does not make you evil. You would actually have to endorse the evil.My view: Your View:

To you, businesses having a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders is evil? Really?Can we just forget you said this, or are you going to actually insist on this?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.